


Sharks and Shadows

by bizzylizzy



Series: Wind Over Tide Universe [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Mist!Shisui - Freeform, One-Sided Attraction, Shadow!verse, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 21:16:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3462365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bizzylizzy/pseuds/bizzylizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kisame wishes Itachi's shadow was actually a jutsu. Itachi wishes Shisui would follow his directions for once. Shisui thinks it's high time for an intervention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharks and Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this Shisui is great stress relief.

The battle is messy and unlike Itachi. Fifteen men and woman lay dead around him, and Itachi is hardly even touched with the carnage. He picks his way neatly to Kisame, and Kisame tries not to be impressed. He watches Itachi’s lips curl up. There’s an odd composure in Itachi these past few months. Before he was just cold, but now there’s an odd _stillness_ and almost contentment in the silent boy.

“What happened here?” Kisame asks.

“Do you not think I’m capable of such a thing, Kisame-san?” Itachi asks in his child’s voice, large cat eyes still battle red and lips gently parted for each deep breath.

“No,” Kisame says, raising his eyes to the field. “Not on your own.”

Itachi’s lips curl, his head ducks just a fraction, as if Kisame has guessed some great puzzle. “I had a little help from my shadow.”

It’s the first time Uchiha Itachi’s shadow is mentioned, but it’s not the first time Kisame sees the evidence of its work. Itachi’s fifteen and a half at the first vicious slaughter filled with high velocity blood splatter, but it’s hardly the only time Kisame sees it. It become a strange threat among the Akatsuki, some unknown summon or jutsu in the Uchiha’s repertoire that holds an awesome amount of destructive power. Its becomes fairly well known, this mysterious “shadow” of Itachi’s.

Itachi never pulls out his shadow when Kisame’s around. It’s only when they’re separated, or when Itachi’s off on his own. The deaths are gruesome--people hacked and carved with a curved and heavy bladed dagger. Itachi’s a master of finesse and genjutsu, not butchery. That’s what this is--butchery.

Kisame knows there’s someone besides Itachi in the room before he enters it, but he does so as if he suspects nothing. He is more than a little shocked to see that Itachi is sound asleep, harder asleep than Kisame has even seen the boy, and _tucked into bed._

Second surprise is the young man sprawled in the chair, drinking sake and watching Itachi breath evenly intently. The man doesn’t look away from Itachi, flinging his fingers out in a careless greeting, sloshing sake out of his cup. “Yo.”

The word tells Kisame a lot, as do the wild curls, the line of the boy’s jaw, and the way he slouches. Kisame considers the young man, who turns his head and looks like he wants to spit when he finally looks at Kisame.

“Ametarsu’s tits, you are a shark, aren’t you?” There’s a heavy blade strapped to his thigh, and Kisame thinks of throat cleaved in two. Even sitting as he is, there’s the suggestion of movement in the man’s tousled hair and loose limbs.

“You’re his shadow, aren’t you?” Kisame turns the roughly accented words around, and the young man’s grin widens.

“Fuck if you aren’t a smart fish. Fancy a drink?”

Oddly, Kisame does.  
-  
Itachi wakes to voices. He’s sleep sodden, one of those binges after nights being awake that Shisui coaxed him into with just a few silver words. Shisui often talks on to himself, chittering on to the ghosts of the voices in his head, or carrying on one-sided conversations with Itachi while he sleeps (those often get rather obscene).

This is not the case. The deep, bass rumble that responded to Shisui’s silver inflection is one Itachi knew in his bones. He comes fully awake with an jerk, hand fisted around the slight blade Shisui let him clutch in his sleep, a deadly teddy bear for a killer (Shisui’s words, not Itachi’s).

“Morning beautiful,” Shisui says, fake slur leaking into his tone. He isn’t drunk. Itachi knows that because Kisame is sitting in the chair across from Shisui, and Shisui wouldn’t be drunk in front of Kisame, no matter how rough yesterday was.Itachi has yet to see Kisame drunk, so he doesn’t know if the man’s bulk allows for it, or if his upbringing has given him an immeasurable tolerance to liquor. 

“That explains a lot,” Kisame raises an eyebrow and a glass at Itachi. Itachi looks at Shisui.

“You’ve genjutsu’d my partner.” Itachi tries not to decipher the jealous indignance he feels.

“Have not--I just got him drunk.” Shisui protests. Kisame snorts into his cup. Perhaps they are both playing drunk. “Okay, well, we’ve been drinking all night and he should be drunk. I am drunk.” He isn’t. Itachi has seen Shisui drunk, and this is not it. Itachi looks between the two.

“We’ve reached a mutually beneficial understanding,” Shisui continues. “One well lubricated by liquor and eased along by our mutual slightly lustful affection for yourself,” Shisui keeps on, lazy hand gestures and a mouth that doesn’t form words with much care.

Itachi carefully performs _kai_ with his hands under the sheets. Nothing changes.

“There is a reason I was keeping you secrets, you know,” Itachi says, slightly annoyed, more alarmed than anything. 

“I know, but that reason’s gone up in smoke now, so you should let it go and wallow in your newfound freedom to be truthful--oh, wait, you like your lies.” Shisui shrugs and smiles. “Now you just have to trust us.”

Itachi cants his head to the side and looks at Kisame. Kisame shrugs. “Your shadow is persuasive, and a valuable asset to the Akatsuki. Also, I don’t see a reason to let anyone else know what your shadow actually is. It would damage your reputation.”

Shisui snorts. “And you need all the reputation you can get, especially now,” Shisui adds.

“Why especially now?” Itachi asks as he slowly starts to get out of bed. He’s still woozy from Shisui's suggestion to sleep, eyelids heavy and ears uncertain. He doesn’t wobble, but he isn’t certain. Kisame or Shisui could knock him down easily. Itachi steadies himself on the wall and wobbles towards the bathroom.

“You can’t walk,” Shisui points out.

“You gave me the harshest antidote you had. Of course I can’t walk,” Itachi protests. Shisui sticks out his tongue. Itachi ignores him and gains the doorframe to the bathroom. He is almost home free. Almost able to close the door on this _madness_.

“He means your illness,” Kisame clarifies. In some ways, he is kinder. In others, perfectly more ruthless than Shisui could ever be. Itachi feels the bite of rough wood into his fingertips.

“My illness?” Itachi asks, not looking back at the conspirators. He likes this bathroom. It’s small and clean and warms up quickly. He fancies a bath this morning, if there’s time for that.

“The coughing, wheezing, lung rattle you’ve got going on, not to mention how much more you sleep. Oh, and the joint pain.” Shisui ticks these things off calmly. “And don’t call it normal ninja arthritis, Kisame and I are older than you, and neither of us aches so much,” Shisui points out viciously. Itachi turns to look at them. He can feel all those things. The way his arms hurt from the elbows down, his legs from the hips--his ankles and feet are a special agony in the morning. He can feel the constriction and congestion in his lungs, the labor of his heart. Best not to mention the ache in his lower back.

“It is called getting older,” Itachi replies, feeling the bitter sting of his tone. Shisui almost bounces out of his chair, and Kisame is _watching_. Kisame is intently _aware_ of the tones they use, their body language, as he tries to break down _what they are_ to each other. 

Itachi wonders what he will come up with, because Itachi has never been able to decide what Shisui is to him or what he is to Shisui. It would be nice to have an outside opinion on this personal matter.

“It is _not_ ,” Shisui snaps, and Itachi realizes Shisui is frightened. Shisui is frightened for Itachi, his health, his fragility. If Kisame weren’t here, if Shisui hadn’t just thrown Itachi’s carefully structured world upside down as he always does, Itachi would be kinder.

“I _AM_.” The word actually comes out breathless. Itachi extends a small wrist, a delicate hand. “I was ANBU before I was a teenager. I was malnourished during the war. I’m not strong. I’m a fluke of inbreeding and genetics--a quick bloomer. I hit my prime back in my teens, and now is the decay. I was a brilliant flash, and now I’m fading.” It’s too poetic for Kisame. It’s not enough for Shisui.

“Fish guts and snail shit. You are not some _lightning bug_.” Shisui is moving closer, and Kisame watches. Kisame is amused and alarmed and more than a little ready to stab someone.

“No, more like a wasp.” Itachi shrugs and closes the bathroom door. Things hit it. Shisui’s cursing like the demon he is, and Itachi has to sit down as his legs give out. He clutches his aching head, and waits for the screaming torrent to subside. When it does, he knows Shisui is gone.  
~  
“So that is your shadow,” Kisame observes, much as he comments on the weather. Kisame is so polite it’s alarming sometimes. He knows all the precise words to say and when to say them. He makes Itachi feel predictable--like somehow Kisame has him figured out.

“So he is,” Itachi admits. They’re getting ready for a day of walking, everything packed at the room set to right. Nothing left behind. They could only be more thorough if Itachi burned the room. They’ve done that before.

The day is at least warm, though damp. It’s not good weather for Itachi. It makes breathing hard. It makes him choke.

“From Mist.”

“From some part of it,” Itachi agrees, taking a heavy breath and hoping Kisame doesn’t notice.

Kisame is aware of Itachi’s struggle, Itachi knows. Unlike Shisui, Kisame respects Itachi’s choices and doesn’t ask if he needs to rest or insist he take “better care of himself.” Kisame is not in love with Itachi. Kisame breathes deeply, easily. Sometimes Itachi wants to puncture Kisame’s lung just to be fair.

He blames his strange sense of “fair” on Shisui.

“I knew his mother.” Kisame says. Itachi stumbles and misses a step. He thinks of the dead woman, half naked and drenched in sea water. “Well, I knew _of_ her,” Kisame goes on at Itachi’s silence. “I saw her once.”

Itachi does not even remember the woman’s name, or if he ever heard it. “She had a silver tongue.”

“That’s the reason she escaped Mist alive, evidently had your shadow somewhere on the East Isles. She was an excellent killer.” Kisame speaks carelessly, and Itachi feel jealous. He can’t pinpoint why. “She was beautiful.” Kisame would think so, all the power and sharpness in the woman. He would think that.

“I met her.” Itachi admits. They’re heading into thicker forests now. Kisame looks surprised.

“She was dead,” Itachi adds. A scimitar smile cuts through Kisame’s face. It doesn’t surprise him, and Itachi wonders what he would have been if he were raised in such a place as Mist, where ghosts of dead traitors bring about smiles.

“In the days before she left, she called herself a goddess. She said that she had captured the devil’s seed in her belly, and she foretold a child that would bring about the end of the world. She convinced an entire minor village to kill themselves instead of face the coming war.” 

“Are you trying to make me feel like an underachieving mass murderer?” Itachi asks. For some reason, he thinks Shisui’s mother would have had a rational reason. She was a cold hearted woman, but Shisui _is_ superstitious.

“I can’t. You don’t have any pride in your murders.” Kisame lifts a branch heavy with dew still. It rains down. Itachi feels a drop hit his face and slide down his cheek.

Itachi refuses to speak of his past deeds in depth, and he always lies about them. Now, for reasons beyond his immediate comprehension, he looks his partner in the eye. “No, I don’t.”

A shadow passes over them, and then it is gone.


End file.
